They have to be one of the most famous pairs of suspenders in recent history. Lawrence Harvey Zeiger, aka Larry King (76), took this homespun male accessory much loved by Middle America and turned it into a style statement that went on to become a powerful branding tool for one of television's pioneering hosts and a man who has, simply, outlasted everyone else.
Anyone who can notch up over 40,000 interviews in 50 years (let's save you the Math; that's 800-plus a year at an average of a little over two a day) has to be at the very least, dogged. But these were not just any interviews; the guest list at “Larry King Live” the show he started in June 1985, has been panoramic. Last month, for instance, his visitors included US President Barack Obama; Microsoft founder Bill Gates with his father; Lady Gaga, current enfant terrible of pop-rock; ex-enfant terrible Mick Jagger; discredited US general Stanley McChrystal; Jermaine Jackson on his brother Michael Jackson's first death anniversary; and ‘Dr Death' or euthanasia advocate Dr Jack Kevorkian, on life after prison. To top it all off, he had maverick millionaire Donald Trump interview him to celebrate the show's 25th anniversary.
Says Rajdeep Sardesai, Editor-in-Chief of India's CNN-IBN, “Larry was the master of the soft-focus interview; he was able to draw out his guests because he was more a friend than a hostile journalist. Whether it was Bill Clinton or Jermaine Jackson, they said things on his show that they wouldn't anywhere else. That was Larry's USP.”
“I've always tried to have a conversation with guests, rather than grill them,” King himself said in an interview with the “Miami Herald” last year.
That was why every sitting American President has been on “Larry King Live” since the show started in 1985. Bobby Kennedy, Eleanor Roosevelt and Martin Luther King dropped by too; and so did Monica Lewinsky and Mark Felt, the ‘Deep Throat' of the Watergate scandal. World leaders like Tony Blair, Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail Gorbachev obliged King as well and one of his career highlights was a one-hour special in 1995 on the Middle East peace process with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, King Hussein of Jordan and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
Wide ranging
At the other end of the spectrum, he has chatted with everyone who was anyone in Hollywood and entertainment, including Frank Sinatra, Audrey Hepburn and the reclusive Marlon Brando, who even sang for King and kissed him smack on the lips in appreciation.
It's a roll call that adds depth to the longevity of his reign; the Guinness book of World Records lists “Larry King Live” as the longest-running show with the same host in the same time slot, in the history of broadcasting. Telecast each weeknight at 9 pm (US Eastern time), the show weaves in phone calls and e-mails from viewers across the world. In 1994, King also created the first daily TV/ radio talk show by ‘ simulcasting' the show on both media.
Now, if you thought that was a lot of work, leaving him time for little else, King also managed to marry eight times, father five children and adopt one more along the way. King's taste in women shows a marked predilection for sexy blondes and one of his wives, Alene Akins, was even a Playboy model (he was smitten enough to marry her twice). Now, it is said, his eighth marriage, to former TV host Shawn Southwick is in trouble because King allegedly cheated on her with her younger sister (also a blonde).
Much of the appeal of this gravelly-voiced, bespectacled showman has been his readiness to take on anything new, be it interviewees, women or a shot at the movies — he has done some 20 movie cameos, in films that include “Ghostbusters”, “Primary Colors”, “America's Sweethearts” and “Shrek 2” and shown up in top-rated television series such as “Law and Order”, “Boston Legal”, “The Practice” and “Frasier”.
But life has not been all about celebrities, Hollywood and sexy blondes for King. There's a generous side as well to the man, whose Larry King Cardiac Foundation has raised millions of dollars for medical care for needy patients. He set up the Foundation after he suffered a heart attack in 1987. He has also established a $1 million journalism scholarship at George Washington University for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
On a much larger scale, his relief efforts in the wake of Hurricane Katrina brought in millions of dollars, largely through a three-hour special called ‘How You Can Help'. Similarly, in January this year, King aired ‘Haiti: How You Can Help', a two-hour edition after the hurricane that hit the island nation.
However, all these accomplishments could not help his ratings, which dipped to their lowest ever this year, and rumour has it that he was gently eased out by CNN. His critics believe it was his “softball” approach that did him in, as American TV hosts have grown increasingly aggressive and less neutral in their opinions. “The jury's still out on that,” says Sardesai. “I refuse to believe that there's no space for the soft-focus interview with a big-name guest. Who wouldn't want to have Bill Clinton confessing to his misdemeanours? Or, in India, Sonia Gandhi opening up?” Sardesai points out, “There's no doubt that the TV viewer today wants strong opinion. But that opinion has to be an educated and informed one, not a shrill one.” Sardesai believes it was the sheer longevity of the show that could have ultimately worked against it. “When a show goes on for 25 years, there's bound to be a certain sameness and tiredness,” he remarks. King himself once said, “I remind myself every morning: Nothing I say this day will teach me anything.”
Getting on
There were also reminders of his age, as when he called ex-Beatle Ringo Starr “George” three years ago. He was also known for not doing as much homework as other hosts might. “If I'm interviewing the author of a book, I don't want to have to read the book. I want to be in the same boat as the audience," he once explained. His critics did not take to that kindly.
King bashes on regardless. Though, as he put it in his blog, “It's time to hang up my nightly suspenders,” he will continue to host occasional specials for CNN. And is eyeing new interests. “There are lots of things I can do now, but at the top of the list is getting a tattoo and a motorcycle,” he declared on Twitter. Perhaps he will also get the time to prepare for his last appointment — in his book My Remarkable Journey, he declared that, when he dies, he wants his body to be cryogenically preserved. So, it will, in a manner of speaking, be Larry King live forever.
... he was more a friend than a hostile journalist...
